Communications, Climate Change & Environment Committee to consider broadcasting bills

The agenda for the meeting is:

Pre-Legislative Scrutiny of the General Scheme of the Broadcasting (Amendment Bill) 2017
and Retransmission Fees,
also scrutiny of the Draft Broadcasting Act 2009 (Designation of Major Events) Order 2017

a.    Representatives from TV3;
b.    Representatives from the platform providers (Eir, Sky, Virgin Media, Vodafone)

Committee Chairman Hildegarde Naughton TD said: “The General Scheme of the Broadcasting (Amendment Bill) 2017 provides that a portion of the licence fee receipts will be paid to the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland to help defray its administrative costs. Under the proposals, this will reduce the overall levy to be paid by the sector and would be applied evenly across all broadcasters.  The proposals also provide for the introduction of a new funding scheme to offer bursaries to journalists working in local or community radio stations and to provide for tendering for TV Licence fee collection.  

At our meeting tomorrow we will also consider the issue of retransmission fees. A legislative amendment would be required so that broadcasters can negotiate appropriate financial terms with relevant platform operators, including eir, Sky, Virgin Media and Vodafone. This is a complicated and contentious issue on which broadcasters and platform operators hold different opinions.

The Broadcasting Act 2009 provides that the Minister may designate certain sporting and cultural events of major importance to society in order to make them freely available on national television - this draft order adds the All-Ireland Senior Ladies Gaelic Football and Camogie Finals to the list of ‘events of major importance to society’.

Tomorrow will meet with representatives from a number of platform providers and also with TV3 to examine all of these issues in greater detail.”

This meeting will take place at 5pm on Tuesday, 3 October 2017 in Committee Room 2, Leinster House. Committee proceedings can be viewed live here.

Committee proceedings can also be viewed on the move, through the Houses of the Oireachtas Smartphone App, available for Apple and Android devices.